Women. . . *sigh*

I find myself in the enviable position of being able to "choose" women, and yet it really means nothing at all to me. I have tried again and again to reconsile my feelings, but the truth is that after both Jessi and Lisa, I'm not even sure if I can feel anything despite the fact that everywhere I turn it seems I am eliciting strong emotional responses from women. I have most of my adult life a serries of relationships of what could have been and what should have been. I do not have contact with my first girlfriend but from Martha right up to Andrea, pretty much all of my ex's are married and have kids, the only exception (that I know of) is Lisa, and really, I don't expect that to last long.

And then there's me. Standing here feeling intensely alone trying not to actually notice just how isolated I am. Saturday I had a woman (who was drunk at the time) tell me she loved me, and . . . nothing. I didn't feel a damn thing! In fact if anything it made me feel even more alone. Adoration I don't deserve. Affection I can't return. I'm always seen as this great awesome guy in the beginning, but in the end they all hate me, and then as time passes the hate turns into pity. I'm left with a vague sense of what *should* happen, and I know I am nowhere near that.

I asked Lisa about it yesterday, and she was thankful that she wasn't the cause of it. I didn't have the heart to tell her that this feeling of emptiness started when i found out about her boyfriend, Shane. I don't really have the heart to tell her about the hell I went through after the break up. I put on a brave face, but God alone knows how I tore myself apart inside.

Then there's Jessi. I've tried to engage her in even "hello". I await the day the restraining order comes in the mail. In one of those rare moments when you realize how badly you've screwed up, and are willing to do anything to undo the damage done, those moments usually come right before the restraining order. In my case when I fall over backwards trying to apolagize I come off as a stalker. Just my luck. The woman who was everything I could have possibly wanted, booted out of my life because I am a freaking moron. Now I can't even get her to acknowlege my existance as more than an annoyance. Dear God its depressing.

When I went with Robinette and Rice to the pool, there was some good natured horse play, but I saw how those two interacted. I know Rice has a boyfriend but body language doesn't lie. She was doing a lot more than innocent horse play with him. I sat and watched them, certain to give them their space, but in my own heart I felt more like a sniper, or an observer then, than an actual participant. I felt like a watcher, a vouyer, and the theought at once left me disgusted and feeling ever so lonely. Is this how my life is going to be? Will I be forced to watch others live their lives? Shouldn't this thought fill me with dread?

Then there's Nicole. Truley, aside from Smitty (SSG Smith to all youse bozos) and Jessica (but less so) she is the only friend that I've kept in touch with throughout my military career, and tonight she said simply that she felt she failed me. I said to her that it's not her responsibility, that the only way she could have helped me is if she had married me. Honestly there is no she could have helped me in any meaningful way other than as a supporting role unless she wayhad married me. I get the feeling from her response that the thought had crossed her mind, and indeed there was a breif period where we had "dated" but it was more one of those "the road not taken" type of things. I think that she would have married me in a heartbeat except that i had been a staple of her life and she didn't want to lose me. Isn't that weird?

Finally there is Laura. Sitting somewhere on Ft Bragg with a marriage that probably won't survive her deployment. She to has feelings for me, and I find myself walking a dangerous tight rope. I never want to be a Jodi (dude who steals wives) but the more I offer support the more it is clear that I might become just that. What's funny is she's got just as many hang ups as me. Her history reads like a case study for a psychology paper, and she has medical conditions I didn't even know were possible before I "met" her (thanks to the wonderful Facebook). There's enough in common (Both medics, both with a signifigant history, both with relationship problems) and a few common interests that there is potential. That's even more dangerous because as her marrage starts to fail she might look to me, and thats not good.

So what the hell happened to me? there once was a point that I would not date women on moral grounds. Now any ol thing and it A-ok. I feel like my life is spinning out of control, and whatever there is of me that is the concious mind (the part that says "I think therefore I am") seems like a passenger on this ride. I feel like I'm someone else when I'm with a woman. I want so desperatly to feel and mean what I say, but I just don't anymore. What happened to the hopless romantic? The poet that belived that love would conqure all things? I'm starting to question if love is even real, or worse as more and more of my friends find happieness and get married, that I was never meant to love or to be loved. I fear that I am some wreched creature that I'm only beginning to comprehend.